Simple...because downloading porn does not bring anybody money.  Sex shops pay off the police to stay afloat...downloading does nothing for anyone except the temporary pleasure of said downloader. 

china wants porn to be banned because china does not want chinese women to know the realities of sex. they do not want them to know about sexual pleasure. they do not want them to see how inadequate chinese men are

I agree with thedude, but I'll also add that it keeps up an appearance of the government doing some good. Porn is obviously seen as being "bad," but a sex shop might sell things that can be used by a married couple or boyfriend and girlfriend.

Porn shouldn't be illegal, there's money in it. I had a girl over, she complained about me, I said you just used to tiny, I showed her a movie, she  .........

When they created the Great Firewall, porn was the reason stated in media, to help protect the users on the Internet from harmful material.  It may or may not have been a smokescreen for another kind of censorship for the media to sell to the people in China and worldwide.  

wow ,94 in a week? that's a lot.  I should be careful then. lol

in china, the sex issues illegal or not based on whether the customer/vendor pay tax for government. like the sex shops pay tax, so it is legal. download porn video or photograph, you don't pay any tax, so it is illegal.

Ohohoo..is it really that the Chinese police knock on your door for downloading the porns? I don't download porns as I am not much interested on it. Though, I download tons of movies (P2P) in China. I use  Vuze to download them.

Last spring festival, I visited my GF in Germany for about a month. I was aware about illegalities of downloading movies in Germany. Unfortunately, the day before I left Germany, I left my computer open and I went out with her (It was Valentine's day). I didn't notice or I didn't care on that day that the Vuze was running on the back ground. In China I didn't care much about it, if it is running or not. Last week she told me that the Valentine's Day seemed costly (way too costly for me). She got a letter from a court that I uploaded a movie for about 2 hours and I have to pay 965 Euro fine. As I didn't download or upload movies intentionally, the lawyer agreed to  reduce the penalties to 800 Euro when she told about the situation. There was no other options than to pay it.

Even though I stopped downloading any movies in China and already removed the Vuze, I still wonder if I have to go through the same situation for my earlier downloads in China too????

So, anyone any iDea, if it is only for porn or for other movies as well!!!!!!

Cause sex shops encourage condoms.

Interesting point about downloading porn not bringing any tax money.  However, Haku brings a good point in that downloading movies doesn't bring any tax money either.  And everyone I know downloads movies.  Yet, I'm sure that's almost never enforced, a little too lazy to google China piracy right now...

It's because they don't want everyone to have access to those privileges. What do you think they will let everyone be able to use that? No! And those shops bring in dollar dollar bills ya'll! The person that was arrested was probably arrested because he was watching child pornography which is a no-no in my country as well (America). You will get sent to jail if you have that downloaded on your computer and yes they will confiscate your computer as well. Not much difference between here and my own country!